Bravo and Celebrity Cruises have created a series of delicious culinary-themed sailing adventures featuring chef’testants from the Emmy® Award-winning television show Top Chef - and the experiences will have you drooling! I recently set sail aboard the Celebrity Solstice from Seattle to Alaska to explore the various Top Chef-inspired activities and what I got a taste of was a whole lot of fun and an abundance of great food - not to mention a handful of recipes and cooking tips to add to my culinary repertoire.

The week-long adventure is filled with culinary and non-culinary experiences so there truly is something for everyone to enjoy, even kids. All guests on board the ship can experience Quickfire Challenges presented by each chef’testant and, if you’re lucky, you just may be selected to join them on stage as sous chef in the challenge!

Guests will enjoy a Top Chef-themed menu night in the Main Dining Room where the multi-course meal is designed by all four chef’testants (see the full menu from our trip below). Additionally, Top Chef fans can purchase private cooking classes and private dinners with the chef’tesants of their choice for an additional fee. I highly recommend experiencing at least one private dining experience and one private cooking class as this once in a lifetime opportunity allows you to interact with the chef’testants in a much more intimate setting. I enjoyed a private dinner with Paul Qui and a handful of my shipmates in Murano, one of the ship’s beautiful specialty restaurants featuring classic French cuisine. Chef Qui, originally from the Philippines, was trained in both classic French and Japanese cuisines. He was the winner of Top Chef season 9, winner of the San Pellegrino Cooking Cup 2013, named one of Food & Wine magazine's 2014 Best New Chefs, and Top 10 Empire Builders of 2012. His culinary style combines traditional Japanese dishes with European and Southeast Asian flavors while using fresh, local ingredients.

Seated next to me at Chef Qui's dinner was Tanner, a 5th grade budding chef who was traveling with his mother. Tanner told me that watching Top Chef with his mom is their "thing" and he couldn’t wait to go on the trip to meet the star chefs. He, along with our other table mates, peppered Paul with questions ranging from behind-the-scenes of the show to cooking tips and favorite dishes. We then noshed on a 4-course meal designed by Chef Qui that started with an appetizer of fried Brussels sprouts with grilled prosciutto. Next came a beautiful salad of charred endive with candied hazelnuts, coffee, lobster and an orange yogurt followed by a succulent falling-off-the-bone coffee-glazed beef short ribs with a fish sauce caramel.

For dessert we enjoyed a wild berry sorbet topped with a delectable French toast-like brioche and finished with an herb gastrique, one of Chef Qui's winning Quickfire Challenge dishes. But the real dessert was seeing Tanner enjoy an incredible meal with one of his culinary heroes.

The next day, I whet my appetite even more with a private cooking class in the Murano kitchen with Nina Compton. Chef Compton, also known as the "Gnocchi Queen" for her adept skills at creating the perfect light and fluffy Italian "dumplings," hails from St. Lucia. According to Chef Compton, the key to making great gnocchi, a difficult dish to master, is to "cook your potatoes whole, don't over mix the dough, and use 00 pasta flour." Cooking can be daunting for many, so I asked her for tips on creating great food at home. "Have respect for the ingredients, and the ingredients will respect you," a creed she learned from her mentor renowned chef Daniel Boulud.

I was eager to learn more from this amazing French, Caribbean and Italian trained chef, so off we went to the kitchen. Each student’s station was equipped with the appropriate cooking tools, a Top Chef apron (signed by Chef Compton) and paper toque (chef hat), as well as the recipe we were about to prepare. The dozen of us students donned our aprons and chef hats and gathered eagerly around Chef Compton in the small kitchen as she demonstrated a dish that won her a Quickfire Challenge on Top Chef. This gorgeous Mediterranean dish featured a tender tentacle of marinated and grilled octopus that was sautéed with a bright and bold combination of fresh herbs, anchovies, capers, baby heirloom tomatoes, olives and potatoes, then served atop a velvety potato crema.

How often do you get to cook on a cruise ship with a Top Chef star? This experience was truly unforgettable!

You don’t have to be a budding chef or even a passionate home cook to enjoy the Top Chef at Sea activities. I spoke with many guests who admitted they lacked skills in the kitchen but still thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining culinary experiences, especially the demonstrations where each chef gave tips and tricks that both novice and experienced cooks found useful. Best of all, it was like being part of a live studio audience where you could ask questions.

The remaining sailings with chef’tesants will take place in Europe in September and the Caribbean in November. For details, visit www.celebritycruises.com/topchef. All participating chefs have been announced, so don’t miss out on these great adventures! You won't go hungry.

Top Chef at Sea Night Menu

Each guest on board will enjoy a complimentary multi-course dinner in the Main Dining Room presenting some of the creative and delicious dishes featured on Bravo’s Emmy® Award-winning show, Top Chef. These were some of the show’s winning dishes that tantalized the taste buds of the judges.